Multicultural Cities of the Habsburg Empire
Catherine Horel has undertaken a comparative analysis of the societal, ethnic, and cultural diversity in the last decades of the Habsburg Monarchy as represented in twelve cities: Arad, Bratislava, Brno, Chernivtsi, Lviv, Oradea, Rijeka, Sarajevo, Subotica, Timișoara, Trieste, and Zagreb. By purposely selecting these cities, the author aims to counter the disproportionate attention that the largest cities in the empire receive.
With a focus on the aspects of everyday life faced by the city inhabitants (associations, schools, and municipal politics) the book avoids any idealization of the monarchy as a paradise of peaceful multiculturalism, and also avoids exaggerating conflicts. The author claims that the world of the Habsburg cities was a dynamic space where many models coexisted and created vitality, emulation, and conflict. Modernization brought about the dissolution of old structures, but also mobility, the progress of education, the explosion of associative life, and constantly growing cultural offerings.
List of illustrations
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter I. CITY PROFILES
- The status of the cities and municipal law in Austria and Hungary
- Twelve cities of Austria-Hungary: twelve different situations and many similarities.
Chapter II. AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN TOWER OF BABEL: THE CITY AND ITS LANGUAGES
- Defining the languages
- Statistical approach of multilingualism
- Multifaceted polyglots
- Literacy and language practice
- Visible multiculturalism
- City language
Chapter III. BELLS AND CHURCH TOWERS: THE CONFESSIONAL DIVERSITY
- A contrasted confessional landscape
- The Jews: a multicultural group par excellence?
- The Roman Catholics
- The Greek-Catholics
- The Orthodox
- Evangelic and Reformed Protestantism
- The diversity of Judaism
- The Muslims: newcomers in the scene of confessional diversity
- Mobile communities: mixed marriages and conversions
- Religion and national politics
- The multiconfessional town: Building churches, temples and synagogues
Chapter IV. SCHOOLS: LEARNING MULTICULTURALISM OR FACTORY OF THE NATION?
- The framework of instruction and school systems in Austria-Hungary
- Languages in school curricula
- National struggle and gender issue
Chapter V. CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS: MULTICULTURALISM AND NATIONAL DISCOURSE
- Cultural associations as political actors
- The song of the nation: choruses
- National institutes
- Women's associations: new ways of action.
- Jewish associative life: coming out of the ghetto.
- The city as a stage: nationalizing the theatre
- The press : actor and enemy of multiculturalism
Chapter VI. SPACES AND LANDSCAPES OF THE CITY
- Modernizing the city
- The appropriation of the public space
- Uses and struggles for the space
Chapter VII. POLITICS IN THE CITY
- Inside the town hall
- Political parties
Chapter VIII. SHARING THE CITY
- The dimensions of local patriotism
- Celebrating the city
- The loyal city : memorializing the Habsburg
- Two cases of "constructed" Habsburg cities: Czernowitz and Sarajevo. A colonial project?
Conclusion Appendix Bibliography Index